Description

When faced with several bound volumes of general orders, new police officers might groan in frustration. How can anyone hope to learn so many rules, much less abide by them? Unfortunately, not following the rules can have grave consequences, as they did in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A call came in on 9-1-1 that a woman was fighting with her son, and two officers were assigned to the call with a third assigned as backup. The operator who answered the call was aware that the son had guns in his possession, but she did not tell police dispatchers because, reportedly, she did not think the guns were a factor. Her conversation with the man’s mother was casual, and the woman mentioned nothing about feeling threatened. The operator did not elicit any additional information from the caller, which is against 9-1-1 procedure. Because dispatchers did not know about the guns, they could not warn the responding officers.  Unaware of the weapons, the responding officers approached the house expecting to face a simple domestic dispute. When the man’s mother opened the door, she allegedly did not know that her son was standing behind her with a gun. He shot and killed two of the officers, then went outside and killed the third (Nephin, 2009). In this case study, the 9-1-1 operator failed to give complete information to the dispatcher, who did not know there were guns involved and therefore could not inform the responding officers. This may have been a faulty judgment call on the part of the original operator or a flaw in her training. If you were tasked with developing a method for training all those involved in the reporting of and response to 9-1-1 calls, what type of training would you propose? Is there anything the responding officers could have done differently, even with their lack of knowledge? If so, what? If not, should police take responsibility for asking for more information before proceeding with any call? Your submission should be a 3-4 page APA formatted paper.. Must be submitted as a Word document.